Murou-ji Temple | Uda City | The Woman's Koya-san | 室生寺 | 宇陀市 скачать в хорошем качестве

Murou-ji Temple | Uda City | The Woman's Koya-san | 室生寺 | 宇陀市

Murou-ji Temple is a Buddhist temple located in Uda city, Nara prefecture, Japan. The temple belongs to the Shingon school of Buddhism and has buildings laid on the mountainside of Mount Murou. Murou-ji Temple is historically significant as a place of worship for the Japanese dragon Zennyo Ryuo, associated with rain prayers. Unlike many temples of the time, Murou-ji was open to females and is also called Mount Koya for women. The temple's five-storied pagoda is one of the oldest standing pagodas in Japan, dating its construction to the 9th century. The temple was founded by the monk En no Gyōja and later restored by Kūkai. The temple's extant record, Murou-ji Ryaku Engi, tells that a successful ritual in respect of a local dragon spirit to cure Prince Yamabe (later Emperor Kanmu)'s illness made the imperial court order a monk from the nearby temple of Kōfuku-ji, named Kenkyō, to construct a new temple on the site. Murou-ji was a subtemple of Kohfuku-ji from the nearby city of Nara and was regularly used for summer prayer retreats. The Murou Ryuketsu Shrine used to be part of the Murou-ji complex until 1868 when efforts were made to separate Shinto and Buddhist institutions. The worship of the Murou dragon continues to the present day in the form of a festival called the Autumn Murou Ryuketsu Shrine festival. The head priest of Murou-ji begins a procession between the temple and the Ryūketsu Shrine, stopping to conduct rituals in favor of the two straw dragon figures. The temple's five-storied pagoda suffered major damage in a 1998 typhoon when a falling tree struck it, but it was restored over the following two years. #Murou-jiTemple #UdaCity #Woman'sKoya-san #室生寺 #宇陀市